Shattering Idols May Get you Promoted

A while back, I got banned from The High Road, a contentious and unpleasant firearms forum, for saying (correctly) that a gun writer named Massad Ayoob had no business giving people legal advice. The moderators banned me, claiming I had violated the rules. Either that was a lie, or they have a rule against discussing Massad Ayoob honestly. At least a couple of forum bigwigs know him personally.

He’s not a lawyer. He’s not even a real cop, not that cops know much about the law. They do not.

He was a part-time cop (“captain” over 5 officers) in a nearly crime-free town the size of a high school. I thought he had no education at all, but today I learned he has a bachelor’s degree in business, from a college with an 84% acceptance rate. So he should be able to manage a hardware store or a restaurant. It’s not legal training.

I don’t know why it was so hard to find evidence that he had a degree. I did try. Maybe he downplays his education because it’s so obvious it didn’t prepare him to discuss things like law, ballistics, firearm design, ammunition design, or bullet wounds. Also, if he touts his background, people may look at it and marvel at the lack of military and big-city police experience.

From my non-expert standpoint, I guess (“guess”) he can speak with some intelligence about using a gun to defend yourself, but it appears he learned what he knows through a career as a writer. So he’s a bit like a person who Googles something a lot and then writes about what he read. That would make him more like Mr. Beauchamp than English Bob and Little Bill.

Self-taught people can be very sharp, but when it comes to law, it hasn’t worked out that way for Ayoob. His writings about the law impress laymen, and they probably impress bad lawyers, but they’re not great. His advice for people who use lethal force is scary, and it comes from a person who, like all laymen, is barred by law from representing people in legal matters. He’s probably right 75% of the time. Any half-bright person who reads up will usually be right about the law. The problem is that you can be right most of the time and still not know what you’re doing.

He used to be nearly alone in his field. As recently as two decades ago, not many people wrote seriously about self-defense tactics. Now you can use Google and find a huge number of people who have what appear to be superior qualifications. You can find experienced cops (who have actually had to shoot at criminals), Navy SEAL’s, Delta Force retirees, former military instructors, people who have worked in various government jobs involving firearms, individuals who have run private security firms, and so on. You can find real ballistics experts and wound experts, and you can find competitive shooters who have done much better than Ayoob. You can find lots of very skilled people who design and make guns. You can find extremely knowledgeable people who make ammunition. You can also find a lot of qualified attorneys who are willing to give general advice from a position of some authority.

Ayoob has done some good work, but it seems to me that his reputation as an oracle was never justified, and in 2020, it’s less justified than ever. No one has the last word on all things gun-related. People who hold themselves out to be demigods say dumb things all the time, and in the right circumstances, even a true expert can be corrected by an intelligent person who spots an error. Nonetheless, many gun enthusiasts quote him as though he were God himself.

Anyway, I got the boot, and it was pleasant news, because the forum was full of angry, condescending pedants and posers. Many gun forums are like that. It’s a shame, because people need good information on firearms, and if we’re going to keep our gun rights, we need to have some sense of community.

The moderators were arrogant, pompous, unfair, and rude. Not all the time, but enough. Visiting the forum was like visiting an abusive parent in the process of losing is faculties. It was necessary to walk on eggs in order to avoid starting kerfuffles that drove threads off-track and destroyed the purpose of posting. I limited my visits. Before posting, I would ask myself if the benefit was worth the aggravation.

I didn’t sit down today to write about being expelled from the playpen. That was just background. I felt like writing because I wanted to talk about the pleasant experiences I’ve had at another forum.

I tried to join two forums after I was paroled from The High Road, and there were some weird issues with my IP address, so I didn’t succeed right away. Finally, one of them let me in. I’m glad I made it, because my experience there has been infinitely better than my experiences at places like The High Road and The Firing Line.

The High Road and The Firing Line are related forums.They sprang from the same root. A bitter, ugly conflict caused a schism. They share at least one moderator.

The Firing Line is somewhat less unpleasant, but it’s still very flawed. One of the problems both forums have is denial. The people who run them are deluded. They think they can build bridges and attract leftists. As a result, members have to be very careful about mentioning politics and God. Things that matter to most gun enthusiasts.

My guess is that the proprietors want to make money by attracting people and selling ads. Or maybe there are some leftists among the owners. I don’t know. But the result is that they end up stifling the population segment that feeds them. Of course, the vast majority of the members are conservative, and many are Christian. They should be welcomed and encouraged, but they’re treated as though they embarrass the management.

When I joined the new forum, I got some big surprises.

First, I had to post an introduction. I got so many friendly responses, I had to shut off notifications. Everyone wanted to say hi, and they posted photos representing their states. That will never happen at The High Road or The Firing Line. I didn’t know what to make of it.

After that, I looked at the history of the place and the rules. It was created because other forums were lame, and they don’t tolerate rudeness.

I found a thread some character started. He was thrilled it was Sunday, because that was football day. Remember when it used to be church day? Spectator sports have always competed against churches and synagogues. That’s by Satan’s design.

Almost no one who responded was happy about football day. They criticized the unpatriotic, whiny pre-game protestors. They said they had better things to watch on TV. The guy who started the thread started responding in anger, and he got banned the next day.

This is typical of sports cultists. They have a demonic devotion to teams and players who do extremely trivial things for a living. You can tell they have a problem, because they get angry at people who say they’re not fans. If you say you don’t watch football, American men are likely to get upset with you. They may even insinuate that you’re a homosexual, which is a little weird, given the big homosexuality problem in football and other contact sports. Ordinarily, heterosexuals are less likely to want to watch big, sweaty muscular men in tight pants, and let’s not even talk about wearing a Target jersey with another man’s name on it.

I was amazed to see how people responded to the football thread. Especially the moderators. I felt at home.

They also have a religion forum. You can go in and talk openly about the antichrist, the rapture, and Jesus. That’s amazing. If you tried that at The High Road, it would never fly. Check out their rule:

We have learned from bitter experience that discussions of politics, abortion, religion, and sexual orientation often degenerate into less-than-polite arguments or claims that “my God is better than your God”. For this reason, we do not discuss such subjects on THR, and any threads dealing primarily with these subjects will be closed or deleted immediately.

They suggest rudeness and conflict are their concerns. The truth is that they allow rudeness all the time. They’re just afraid of offending non-Christians.

The new forum allows religious conversations, and they even have a chaplain. You can post prayer requests.

As for politics, they boot people who start anti-gun threads. They haven’t sold their souls. They know who supports them. The forum itself has a pro-Second-Amendment position. They say so. No hiding.

You can go to a thread and say rioters are spoiled criminals who want to promote socialism. You can say the police should blast them with water cannons to restore peace. No problem!

In short, it’s a much healthier place. The people are nice, the moderators understand who they need to attract and retain, and they don’t pretend to be something they’re not.

One of the signs of a successful Christian walk is seeing venomous, godless people removed from your life. When you’re in need of refinement, God doesn’t want to subject his children to you too much. He wants to bless them, and they can’t have blessed lives if they’re constantly forced to endure obnoxious people. As you improve, he will move you to better places. I saw this principle at work when God helped me move out of Miami. I see it in my experience with The High Road. Those people are a mess. Spending time on that forum is like hanging out with toddlers in day-old diapers. It produces a feeling of being besieged. Moving to a nicer place is like taking a shower and putting on fresh clothes.

If you hate the place where you live, and you’re tired of the people around you, maybe you need to clean yourself up so you’re fit to be put somewhere else. That’s how I see it. I love it where I am, but I think God will move me to an even nicer place if I cooperate and grow.

The rapture is the final expression of this principle. When it no longer makes sense to make us stay in this world, God will put us in a place where we are all alike in our hearts. There won’t be any rioters. No one will be pulling down statues. We won’t have to read news stories about pregnant “men.” We’ll never have to picket any abortion clinics. I see why we talk of eternal life as rest.

I feel more motivated to improve. There are rewards. There is relief ahead. It’s worth the trivial sacrifices.

Today is my third day of fasting until 3 p.m. Yesterday, after I was done, I felt bursts of faith that startled me. I felt self-control increasing and the drives of the flesh decreasing. It’s exciting. Maybe this type of fasting is the key to the breakthrough I needed. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat before 3 p.m. again. At the very least, I can see myself abandoning breakfast.

If I want to be separated from the filthiness of the world, I need to be separated from my own filthiness. I want God to bless me by putting me among good people, but if I’m still a mess, he can’t do that, because he won’t want to subject them to my presence.

I hope to keep posting good reports. I hope I’m really onto something.